All Things in Common

The Economic Practices of the Early Christians

Montero

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781532607929
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

All Things in Common gets behind the "communism of the apostles" passages in Acts 2:42-47 and 4:32-37, using the anthropological categories of "social relationship" espoused by David Graeber and other anthropologists. Looking at sources ranging from the Qumran scrolls to the North African apologist Tertullian to the Roman satirist Lucian, All Things in Common reconstructs the economic practices of the early Christians and argues that what is described in Acts 2:42-47 and 4:32-37 is a long-term, widespread set of practices that were taken seriously by the early Christians, and that differentiated them significantly from the wider world. This book takes into account Judean and Hellenistic parallels to the early Christian community of goods, as well as the socioeconomic context from which it came, and traces its origins back to the very teachings of Jesus and his declaration of the Jubilee.This book will be of interest to anyone interested in Christian history, and especially the socioeconomic aspects of early Christianity, as well as anyone interested in Christian ethics and New Testament studies. It would also be of interest to anyone interested in possible alternatives to the ideology of capitalism.

1

The Economic Context of First-Century Palestine

We first need to examine the economic world in which the first Christian community3 found itself. Given that, according to Acts, the first Christian communities were found in Palestine; we will limit our examination to that region. Christianity very soon spread throughout the Roman world, but the economic practices in which we are interested are described as having started in Palestine; therefore first-century Palestine is the most relevant context for examining the birth of Christianity along with its practices. Palestine in the first century was a society in which the class in which one was born would determine almost everything about one’s life.

The vast majority of the population were desperately poor, living near or at a sustenance level, with a few people living at a level which we would today, rather anachronistically, call “middle class” (merchants, small businessmen, and so on), and even fewer elites. There was a strong distinction between the city and the countryside: the former being where the elites lived along with the urban poor, and the latter being where the majority of the population lived as peasants. When we talk about the poverty of this time, we are talking about devastating and extreme poverty, where people would often go hungry. In the book Christian Origins: a People’s History of Christianity, Warren Carter writes:

Food shortages were frequent as a result of bad harvests, unfavorable weather, distribution difficulties, speculation by traders (see Philostratus, Life of Apollonius 1.8), wars, taxes, and so forth. Shortages meant endemic undernourishment or chronic malnutrition, especially for the poor.4

By modern standards, we would say that life was extremely hard and brutal for the vast majority of the population. In this kind of environment, getting enough food for the day was not something guaranteed; and having access to sources of food and shelter would be, for many, a daily matter of life and death. Dominating over the population were the institutions of political, religions, and economic power. The most powerful economic institutions in Palestine were the Roman state—which ruled through its local representatives and officials, the Herodian elite, and the Temple—along with the leading priests. These three institutions worked in concert with, and depended upon one another for their political and economic power. The Roman state kept the Herodian elite in power; the Herodian elite appointed and supported the temple leadership; the temple leadership received benefits and sanction from the Roman State; the Herodian elite ruled on behalf of the Roman state and enforced its sovereignty; and the temple legitimated both the Herodian elite and Roman rule.

The Roman state ruled primarily through military power which facilitated the collecting of taxes and tributes. The Herodian elite ruled primarily through taxation, the ownership of land, and the collection of land rents; and the temple elite ran financial institutions, owned vast amounts of land, and received temple taxes. All of the power elites ruled through economic power: property and rents—which was backed up by the sword.

The Herodian elite, for much of the first century C.E., were the aristocracy of Judea and Galilee; Herodian through their loyalty to the Herodian dynasty and its policies, and aristocratic through birth and landownership. These individuals would have been the direct political and economic power in Palestine, and were representations of Roman power and domination to the common people. The Herodians had to constantly ride a thin line between respecting the Judean customs and religion, and keeping the Roman peace and maintaining economic and political power (which, as we will see later, could often be in conflict). When we talk of maintaining the Roman peace, what we really mean is securing the tribute to Rome—not only for the sake of Rome but also for the Herodian’s pockets—since the Herodian dynasty depended on Rome for its hegemony, and the Herodian aristocratic families depended on the dynasty’s survival for their own wealth.5 They needed the support of the temple in order to gain legitimacy from the Jewish people, and they needed the support of Rome for the muscle to protect their power.

Of the actual economic institutions through which economic power was wielded, the temple in Jerusalem, along with its priesthood, was one of the most important and wealthy. This institution was also largely controlled by Herod, through his appointments of various High Priests—appointments made for almost entirely political purposes.6 After Herod’s death, appointments were made by whomever happened to be ruling Jerusalem, and these appointments were also very often politically motivated.

The priesthood in Judah was extremely wealthy; holding the best lands, and gaining large amounts of wealth through constant taxes, land rents, and the receiving of offerings. This was the case despite the biblical mandate that the Levite priesthood ought not to hold land; a fact that tells us that many in the priesthood were probably slightly more mercenary in their vocation than they were pious.7 The temple employed a vast number of lay workers, doing various types of work related to the running of the temple and its economic interests. Either indirectly or directly, a huge portion of the population of Jerusalem relied on the temple for their income; either by directly working for the temple priesthood or working in industries that supplied and supported the temple establishment. You could say that the temple was itself an entire economy; however it was a top-down economy. The lay workers, despite their necessary function, were considered to be lower in status than the priesthood, and looked down on by the priesthood; often due to purity concerns and the fact that some of the trades done by the lay workers were considered to be undignified by the Jewish religious leaders.8

Looking at these two power groups, not to mention the all-powerful Roman state, we can imagine a symbiotic relationship of political, religious, and economic power; a power-triad which would seem almost unbreakable to the populous.

It is often pointed out that the economy grew significantly during the time of King Herod, and that a lot o...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Economic Context of First-Century Palestine
• Chapter 2: Economic Relationships
• Chapter 3: The Essenes, a Jewish Messianic Community
• Chapter 4: Hellenistic Concepts of Friendship, Common Property, and Attitudes toward the Poor
• Chapter 5: The Economic Practices of the Early Christians
• Chapter 6: “The Tragedy of the Commons”
• Chapter 7: The View from the Outside
• Chapter 8: The Theological Origins of Christian Sharing
• Chapter 9: A Universal Community
• Chapter 10: Why Others Get it Wrong
• Conclusion
• Bibliography